DarkStar responds to me:
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If I take a piece of metal and painstakingly carve out the obverse and reverse of a quarter, is it any different from a quarter that is minted?
Sure it's different, yours isn't legal tender.
And how would you ever know? It is an exact duplicate in every respect except the method by which it came into being.
Do you think that if it were dropped into a vending machine, an exact duplicate wouldn't work?
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My holy book?
You are a Christian, are you not? That makes the book commonly known as the Bible your holy book, does it not?
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My intelligent design.
Yes. That piece of nonsense you are claiming has some connection to reality and deserves to be taught alongside actual science.
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Where the hell did I say that? What post were you reading anyway?
Yours.
You seem to think that if you argue for something, you cannot be considered connected to it.
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And as for the aclu, I never said it was anti-christian, or even anti-religion, just anti-theist
Then you need to read my posts a little more closely. I directly stated that the links I provided were just for the times when Christianity was under attack. I didn't include the times when other religious traditions were under attack.
The reason I did this was so that you couldn't then alter your original claim of "anti-theism" to something like, "They'll protect any religion so long as it isn't Christianity." You want a list of other cases the ACLU has taken up to protect non-Christian theists?
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The ACLU was the prime mover in bringing this challenge to the Ohio motto.
As well they should. The acknowledgement of god is a violation of the First Amendment.
Freedom of religion necessarily requires freedom from religion, otherwise it is meaningless.
You seem to be heading toward a claim that if someone says absolutely nothing about god, then that is the same as actively denying its existence. The oral arguments before the SCOTUS in the Newdow case regarding the phrase "under god" in the Pledge of Allegiance are quite appropos. It seems the SCOTUS is trying to say that the phrase "under god" is so innocuous as to be devoid of any religious meaning, but that only makes sense to someone who believes in god. To someone who does not believe in god, the mention of any god is an imposition of religious authority.
Souter commented that the use of under god is "so tepid, so diluted ... that it should be under the constitutional radar." He calls it "ceremonial deism" and says that any religious overtones are "close to disappearing." But as Newdow retorts, it's like "getting slapped in the face every time."
So yes, Ohio needs to remove references to god from its motto just as the US needs to remove references to god from its motto. Atheists are citizens just like everybody else, aren't they?
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According to recent statistics, the U.S. population is compromised of 80 percent Christian/Jews. I think the ACLU goes way overboard when they are out recruiting complainants for cases that the vast majority of the population would not support.
Our rights should not be subject to popularity contests. It is precisely because the vast majority of the population would not support it that the ACLU exists. You have a
RIGHT to do something that most people would not like you to do. What is the point of having rights if you're not allowed to exercise them due to everybody else thinking it's icky?
In the 1960s, fully 70% of the population thought that interracial marriage was wrong and should be outlawed. And yet, the SCOTUS seemed to think differently.
Are you saying the SCOTUS was wrong? That there is no right to marry another person of a different race? That if 70% of the people think it's wrong, then it should be criminalized the way Virginia had made it?
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They oppose restricting children from pornography on the Internet
Incorrect.
They are quite for restriction of pornography from being exposed to children. However, they are also for an adult's right to view it without governmental interference. You do see the difference, yes? That a method of restriction that protects the children but violates the rights of adults is not valid, yes?
You do understand the difference between the means and the ends, yes? And you do understand that the ends can never justify the means as a simple matter of logic, yes?
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Where is the logic in this?
Simple: Rights have meaning and cannot be violated. That's why they are called
RIGHTS. The Constitution expressly forbids governmental establishment of religion, and therefore having governmental displays of the Ten Commandments are a violation of a person's right to have a government free of religious justification.
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Where is the balance in this?
Exactly where it needs to be. Again, you are headed in the direction of claiming that by saying nothing, that is equivalent to active denial. If you ask me if I believe in god and I respond with, "I am not at liberty to discuss that," have I professed a belief or a disbelief in god?
By saying absolutely nothing, the government guarantees that all religious opinions are treated equally.
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Where are they guiding our country?
Towards freedom and equality.
Why do you seem to be insisting that's a bad direction to go?
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The ACLU say they exist to protect our freedoms, but there are limits and in the wake of what happened on 9/11 - arguably a case could be made that they should be ashamed of where their guidance has gotten us so far.
Incorrect.
It is because of the aftermath of 9/11 that we need to be ever more vigilant to protect our freedoms so that our rights do not vanish in a wave of fear. Rights have meaning and they exist to be exercised, especially by those who hold unfavorable views. Otherwise, what's the point? If the only people who are allowed to exercise rights are people with whom you agree, it isn't a right, now is it?
I seem to recall great speeches by politicos that the reason we were attacked was because of our freedom.
So our response to being attacked is to take those freedoms away? That makes no sense. That means the terrorists won. If the goal was to destroy the freedoms we have, then they achieved their goal.
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ACLU Urges Supreme Court to Uphold Ruling Removing the Phrase Under God From Pledge of Allegiance Recited in Public Schools
Which is the absolutely correct position. There really is no other way to look at it. The Constitution expressly forbids religious establishment by the government. For the government to acknowledge god is to establish religion. The only recourse is to simply shut up about it. Don't say anything.
Surely you aren't implying that saying nothing is equivalent to active denial, are you?
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It should be clear to you by now that I am no fan of the aclu
But that's just it: You should be.
They're protecting your rights, too. By taking your stance as you have that a person's rights should be subject to a popularity contest, you doom yourself for eventually, your opinions will be considered unpopular and you will be denied the right to hold them.
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Mark my words, when the religious liberties have been fully eroded in this country, we won't be far behind on the hit list.
Bullpuckey.
Name a single religious liberty that has been eroded.
Do not confuse an action that you once were able to get away with but never should have been allowed to do in the first place to be a "liberty."
F'rinstance, it used to be the case that white people could discriminate against people who weren't white. But they never should have been allowed to do so and their loss of that ability is not an erosion of liberty.
So be specific. Are you not allowed to pray whenever you want? Even in school. As the joke goes, so long as there are pop quizzes, there will be prayer in school.
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!
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